‘Emergent: Music Legacy Commissions’ will see three new works commissioned by early career Disabled musicians per year. These will be awarded across the country, in partnership with leading music venues and organisations and will cover a range of musical styles.

Training

‘Emergent: Music Legacy Trainees’ will provide paid ‘on the job’ training opportunities for six emerging Disabled musicians per year.These will be rolled out across the country and will offer training and mentoring from established music leaders, including the use of tech in music.

UK region: London

Emergent: A Music Legacy is Drake Music’s three-year programme, funded by Help Musicians UK and the Wingate Foundation, to provide opportunities, support and greater profile to advance the next generation of disabled musicians in the pursuit of excellence in their music careers.

About the project

The programme offers opportunities, mentoring and support for early-career Disabled musicians to help them begin to get established in the sector. Emerging musicians benefit from masterclasses, performance opportunities and recordings of their new commission.

Alongside this commitment to composition is training for Disabled musicians who would like to work as music leaders. Drake Music’s research revealed that disabled people are severely under-represented in the music education and arts workforces and this programme aims to create opportunities for disabled musicians to transfer their skills into the classroom or community music settings. Emergent offers much-needed new pathways into the industry for disabled people and supports their growth and development as artists and leaders.

To further the career development of six young baroque performers at the start of their professional careers.

UK region: London

End date: 2019-10-31

Start date: 2018-09-30

Handel House Talent is an exciting scheme to further the development of promising young baroque music performers at the start of their professional careers.

Handel House and baroque specialist, Laurence Cummings, has selected a mixture of singers and instrumentalists with a particular interest in performing music from the Baroque period to benefit from this free, year-long programme.

The programme runs from 30 September 2018 to 31 October 2019 with an end-of-year concert in December 2019. A range of workshops, tutorials and masterclasses is offered in addition to rehearsal and performance opportunities.

Since 2012, the organisation has partnered with Musica Viva Australia to bring its world-class education programme to Hong Kong schools via the Chamber Music in Schools Programme.

The programme introduces students to chamber music through high-quality professional performances, exposing them to different kinds of music (classical, jazz, world music etc) and musical instruments (brass, wind etc) and broadening their vision as global citizens as they listen to and explore musical styles and cultures from other parts of the world.

Chamber Music in Schools Programme

As of July 2018, Premiere Performances’ Chamber Music in Schools programme has arranged school tours 14 music ensembles (12 from Musica Viva Australia and two from Premiere Performances) and made nearly 300 school visits, reaching 3,000 teachers and 80,000 students.

A Chamber Music in Schools Programme workshop

Each Chamber Music in Schools ensemble visits at least 15 schools across Hong Kong per tour, providing in-school concerts and chamber music workshops.

Each ensemble offers an educational and interactive one-hour performance for up to 300 students. Along with to the live performance, participating music teachers are given an Education Kit, providing a range of pre- and post-performance activities to maximise the impact of the performance.

In addition, a free workshop specially designed for music teachers is hosted by a music education specialist from Musica Viva Australia once a year for all participating teachers.

Programme development

In 2013, Premiere Performances recognised the need for a Cantonese programme for local schools. An open audition was arranged to recruit local young talents to join this programme and a woodwind ensemble, Viva! Pipers, was formed as a result. The five members received extensive training from professional musicians from Musica Viva Australia to help them deliver high-quality educational performances. To facilitate high demand from local schools, a second ensemble, Fiesta Brass, was formed in 2016.

Local ensembles

Viva! Pipers (woodwind quintet)

Viva! Pipers is an ensemble of talented musicians from Hong Kong who have received overseas training. The group’s performances have been carefully developed to showcase a range of musical styles and genres and to be engaging and fun. Since the ensemble’s first school tour in April 2015 – as of the end of the 2017/18 school year – they have given nearly 70 performances at kindergartens, Primary and Special Needs schools and visited more than 20,000 students. They have also given public concerts at Sha Tin Town Hall, Ngau Chi Wan Civic Centre and Tuen Mun Town Hall and community concerts at Hysan Place and Exchange Square. Viva! Pipers performs in both Cantonese and English.

Fiesta Brass (quintet)

Fiesta Brass is the second ensemble established by Premiere Performances to perform in its Chamber Music in Schools Programme

Fiesta Brass is an ensemble of five outstanding young Hong Kong musicians who are passionate about performing. The group was formed in 2017 and is the second ensemble established by Premiere Performances after the successful launch of Viva! Pipers in 2014. The members are receiving professional training from international ensembles and music specialists from Musica Viva Australia. Fiesta Brass gave their first school tour in March 2018. They gave a total of 20 performances and reached 6,000 Primary students and 200 teachers. They also gave a community concert at the Asia Society in January 2018. Fiesta Brass performs in Cantonese only.

Chetham’s School of Music is a partner in both Manchester and Greater Manchester Music Education Hubs.

The Greater Manchester Youth Jazz and String Orchestras hold their regular rehearsal weekends at Chetham’s, and have done so since their inception. Chetham’s New School Building provides a fantastic base for the ensembles to meet and rehearse, and for students and staff to work alongside young musicians from the wider region.

A number of Chetham’s students are also members of the Jazz Orchestra, whilst Director of Music, Stephen Threlfall, and Deputy Head of Strings, Owen Cox, are both involved in conducting and tutoring the String Orchestra. This partnership has arisen from a strong relationship with the Greater Manchester Music Education Hub, and has given both ensembles new opportunities to explore new repertoire and to prepare for performances at high profile Hub celebrations.

To build a Song Bank and support material to help teachers develop their students' skills as performers, listeners and composers.

UK region: East of England

Founded in 2013 and inspired by Benjamin Britten, Friday Afternoons is an international initiative encouraging young people to sing.

The Friday Afternoons initiative began as part of the celebrations for Benjamin Britten’s centenary. What was initially just a Suffolk project became regional, then national, then global, and on Friday, 22 November 2013, there were close to 70,000 young people from around the world singing one or more of Britten’s songs.

Friday Afternoons now commissions new repertoire every year for children’s voices, with a whole host of resources available for free on the website, including teaching and accessibility resources to help as many people as possible engage with the songs.

The project’s ever-growing Song Bank contains new music and support material to help teachers develop their students’ skills – as performers, listeners and composers.

For 2017, Luke Styles worked alongside librettist Alan McKendrick on 12 new songs for the Friday Afternoons Song Bank. Eight of the songs were written by the composer and librettist, with four additional songs being created in collaboration with groups of young people across the country. These groups are: Elgol Primary School and Bun-sgoil Shlèite, Isle of Skye; Thomas Wolsey School, Ipswich; Netley Primary School, London; and students from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance.

'... a new initiative for UK primary schools that aims to inspire a generation of children to enjoy classical music and use it as a stimulus to their own creativity.' - The Guardian

'Events like this really help local young people to develop confidence and self-esteem, which allows them to reach their potential and as a council we are lucky to have such close relationships with our schools to support this goal, and this concert really showed how successful this has been. I am so proud of our children and young people who have continued to develop in musical education.' - Councillor Tom Bruce, Cabinet Member for Education, Children and Youth Services, Hounslow Council

Ten Pieces opens up the world of classical music to 7-14 year-olds across the UK and inspire them to develop their own creative responses to the music.

Ten Pieces helps young people to get creative with classical music and develop imaginative responses. The project is open to schools, home educators or any kind of arts organisation.

The project comes with a wealth of support resources:

Ten Pieces films; these consist of ten performances of classical music – there are twenty pieces available in total.

A free DVD box set of the performances is available. The performances are between two and ten minutes in duration.

These resources are designed for 7 to 14 year-olds and have taken into account the KS2, First Level, Second Level and the KS3 and Third Level curriculums in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Lesson plans are labelled with their appropriate age group.

Ten Pieces has additional support from a range of music and arts education stakeholders and is delivered in partnership with Ten Pieces Champions. The Champions are Music Education Hubs, Music Services, orchestras, film, dance and other arts organisations from across the UK working in collaboration with the BBC to introduce classical music to the next generation. They have signed up to Champion the project and work together on delivering music and arts education to every young person throughout the nations and regions.

‘Ten Pieces marks the biggest commitment the BBC has ever made to music education in the country. We hope that the project will inspire a generation of children to learn more about classical music.’ – Roger Wright, Controller, BBC Radio 3 and Director, BBC Proms

‘Music has the power to transform lives, and we are hoping that this project will be a catalyst for all kinds of creativity in primary schools across the country, as well as providing an inspirational way into classical music.’ – Katy Jones, Executive Producer, BBC Learning

Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (King's College London)

Jewish Care

MariaMarina Foundation

Orchestras Live

Queen Mary University of London

The Richard Hickox Foundation

Royal Hospital for Neurodisability

St Joseph’s Hospice

Task Force Trust

Tower Hamlets Arts and Music Education Service (THAMES)

University College London Hospital School

Testimonials:

'Some of the kids had never publicly performed before. It was a real milestone for their confidence. To be given the opportunity was just fantastic.' Julia Schubert, Westgate Youth Group, Ipswich

Project aims:

To work in care homes, hospitals and hospices, honing the necessary skills to allow music to aid in the healing process and provide an outlet for those who need it most.

To work alongside local music hubs to deliver unique creative projects and first-time orchestral experiences with young people who have significantly lower levels of arts engagement.

To address the economic and cultural barriers that may prevent young people from discovering classical music, workshop participants work directly with our musicians to programme and produce a range of exciting and inspiring concerts.

Wellbeing through Music. This takes place in healthcare settings, where City of London Sinfonia (CLS) musicians deliver performances, often at patients’ bedsides, as well as end-of-term projects for young children in major London teaching hospitals such as Great Ormond Street. They also undertake regular visits to care homes in North London, making music with Holocaust survivors or people suffering from dementia. Plans for the next three years include creating a body of research around the effectiveness of these projects, going beyond the anecdotal and providing clinical evidence as to their effectiveness.

Growth through Music. This sees CLS musicians working with very young children (aged 3-7) in communities that are geographically or economically isolated, including rural Suffolk and Tower Hamlets. Working closely with schools and music education hubs, CLS addresses a significant gap in provision for children at a crucial time in their academic and social development, performing for children and families through its Crash Bang Wallop! and Lullaby concert series and creating interactive first-time orchestral experiences for teenagers and young people through its First Time Live projects in collaboration with Orchestras Live.

Kate Whitley, Sakoto Doi-Luck and Kim Ashton with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment

Testimonials:

'Working with Sound and Music on their Portfolio scheme has shown us a dizzying array of new composing talent. In choosing Rasmus Zwicki and Amble Skuse we anticipate two wildly exciting new Paraorchestra premieres. These two fierce creative spirits could not be more welcome!' Charles Hazlewood, conductor and founder of the British Paraorchestra

'I am most excited to work with Portfolio because it enables me to take the leap from composing for dance, theatre, film or whatever to writing concert music. This will give me a chance to try and manifest all these abstract ideas I have, to experiment and explore new territory with the quartet, getting mentoring and support and hopefully ending up with work which is challenging, beautiful and modern.' Dom Bouffard, composer

'As a composer who also performs as an electric guitarist, the opportunity that this Portfolio project offered to work in the capacity of a composer with four other electric guitarists was very attractive to me indeed. It feels like this opportunity has come at a particularly important time for both elements of my practice; after a substantial period of time of focussing solely on my work as a composer, I have recently become more active as a guitarist again, and I think this project gives me a very interesting chance to examine these two elements of my practice in relation to one another.' Alex Mackay, composer

Project aims:

To allow composers to develop a portfolio of compositions in collaboration with professional ensembles and presenting organisations and deliver this work to public audiences.

UK region: London

Sound and Music‘s Portfolio scheme provides a key development opportunity for composers to create new work with and for some of the UK’s leading ensembles and presenters of new music.

Portfolio enables them to develop their portfolio of compositions and gain vital artistic and practical insight and experience in working with professional ensembles and presenting organisations and delivering new work to public audiences.

Selected composers are invited to develop a small-scale, short new work for a collaborative partner. These are developed through a series of workshops during which the composer works in close collaboration with the performers supported by an experienced composer mentor. The process culminates in a public performance of the new work within the ensemble’s performance schedule.